An Obsession with All Things Handmade and Home-Cooked

Instant Halloween

In true procrasinator’s fashion, I managed to put off decorating for Halloween until it was just nearly too late. I doubt that anyone’s quite as behind as I am, but if you find yourself in the same predicament, I highly suggest simple little accents like these bright and cheerful faux-pumpkins.

Dead easy and dirt cheap, too. All you need are various sizes of styrofoam spheres and scraps of orange crepe paper. First, cut a small, rounded indentation on both the top and bottom using an exact-o knife. Grab your glue of choice (I suggest a hot glue because it dries so quickly) and place then end of a thin length of colored paper in a dollop of the adhesive in the top indent. Measure visually to see how long it needs to be to reach the bottom, cut, and attach to the opposite end. Repeat over and over until you get all the way around your sphere. The stems are simply made from old paper bag handles, cut short and fanned out slightly at the bottom.

These things are so basic, with proper supervision they could probably be great projects for younger kids. You could even go the extra mile and draw faces on them if you’d like.

It may be a bit late to post these for Halloween, but hey, pumpkins are still appropriate for Thanksgiving, so maybe they’re actually early in that sense!